Guitar
Left Side
- shows what frets to hold down to form chords
- good for quickly finding chords you don’t know how to make
- 7th & minor chords only show changes from from major chords
- e.g. C7 only differs from C major by fretting the 3rd fret on the 3rd string
Right Side
- organizes chords by key
- good for practicing chords (it sounds nicer to play chords that fit together)
Middle Stuff
- extra info on what notes make up the chords and how to make barre chords
PDF here
Banjo
All the tunings Tim uses semi-regularly
Major Key Tunings – PDF
Again, 7th & minor chords only show changes from the major chords.
G tuning is usually considered “standard tuning” on banjo, especially in the new-fangled genre that is bluegrass.
C tuning is also knows as ‘drop C’ or sometimes ‘C standard’ or ‘old-time standard.’ It’s not an open tuning, but simply dropping one string makes it a lot easier to play in C, a key that usually suits our voices better than G.
D tuning is an open tuning for another key we often use. It’s probably more normal to tune the drone string to F# (which is the 3rd of a D chord), but making the drone the root or 5th sounds better to us. I use a mini-railroad spike as a kind of fixed one-string capo to get the drone string more easily up to A.
Minor chords – PDF
I made up this Dm tuning all on my lonesome, but someone’s probably done it before me. It’s not an open tuning, but it makes for pretty easy fingerings in Dm, with some nice spots to hammer on into chords.
Cm is an open minor key tuning that comes in handy, and sometimes I think about capoing it up to Dm, to replace the previous tuning.
Am/Gm is another open minor key tuning for playing in a different range.
Blackgrass 